Hi Lisa, My first compost pile was three wood pallets wired together as a bin. I got some grass, leaves, food that was sprouting in the frig, and some coffee grounds. I mixed and piled the stuff in the bin and stood there waiting for the smoke to start coming out. It took too long, so I went back in the house. The next day I came out and the pallets had fell on top of the pile, and the pile was still stone cold. I said one of our words that starts with an "f", put an "it" in the sentence and walked away. A week later I came back to clean up the mess and moved some of the pile and it was HOT! I have not been the same since. Please give yourself a chance, this is going to be more fun than you can imagine. Believe it or not, the day can come that you may find yourself riding in your car, spotting a bag of potential compost material on the curb, looking around while grabbing the bag and tossing it in your car/truck at the same time, then giggling like that cartoon dog (Dastardly) as you head home with your eyes darting from left to right looking for more bags. It is possible that life will never be the same Blutranes

No, you aren't crazy. The drought is affecting many areas of the Mid-Atlantic region. In southeastern VA, we've had 0.5 inches of rain in July. According to an article in the Washington Post, the governor of Virginia requested drought disaster aid for 10 counties, others may be eligible. Maryland will decide whether to apply for the designation by the end of next week. "The governor's office is helping is helping ten counties with requests for federal drought disaster designations: Bland, Lee, Washington, Brunswick, Russell, Wise, Caroline, Scott, Culpeper, and Smyth . . . adjacent localities also may be eligible for federal assistance: the counties of Floyd, Grayson, Pulaski, Franklin, Henry and Wythe, and the city of Galax." Pam Here is a link that might be useful: Dire Forecast For Md., Va. Corn Crops

I have not scheduled surgery yet and am ignoring the suggestion of having them both done at once. When I was a newly graduated RN I worked ortho for a year ( some disasters but hips have come along way) and my mom had a horrible hip replacement outcome, so I am putting it off for as long as I can. Don't wait so long you are too out of shape ... it's best done while you are still reasonably spry with muscle strength left for rehab instead of totally crippled and weak. And before you have wrecked the surrounding support muscles and tendons compensating for the pain and lack of mobility. (SO has a prosthetic knee, his brother has 2 of them, and another brother has a hip replacement he loves). Yes, it's come a LONG ways, even using 3-d imaging and custom manufacture of the prosthetics if needed. They can build a copy of the joint, figure out exactly how things need to be altered and dry-fit the prosthesis without ever lifting a scalpel.

I live in Zone 8, Kirkland WA and built a house a year ago. The builder installed a Rainbird spray head sprinkler system. We had a basic planting set-up for a new house -- a simple bed all around the perimeter with a few native shrubs (some hydrangeas, azaleas, rhododendron, etc.). It was a hot summer and I had fresh sod and new plants so I watered frequently. My first water bill gave me quite a shock, so I made plans to convert my planting beds to a drip irrigation system using Rainbird's spray to drip conversion system. Fast forward to this summer and after about $300 in parts and some seriously back-breaking work over several weekends my drip system was installed. Excellent! I also planted about 75 new perennials and shrubs (small guys) to start to fill in the beds, with plans to add many more this fall. All hooked up with drip emitters, growing and happy. Life is good. And now I'm thinking about pulling out the whole drip system and going back to spray heads. Here's why: Running emitters sucks. This is really the biggest issue for me. I want lush landscaping (think Pacific Northwest woodland garden like this) so I still want to plant another 25 or so young, native shrubs, trees, grasses in my beds just this fall. I've learned it's really a pain in the butt to have to run yet another drip line, check it for leaks, bury it, etc. This is not a concern with the spray heads which just cover the whole area regardless the number of plants I throw at it. It's more maintenance. Instead of 20 points of failure (spray heads) I have more like 100 if you include all the converters, connections, emitters, etc. I've already had to repair leaks and replace many heads. With all those emitter lines running throughout the beds it's really hard to mulch and weed and lay down compost without constantly tripping over the lines. Yes, my water bill was down, but the weather was much cooler, we had more rain and more of my plants are established, requiring less water. So, over time the use of the spray heads (in the planting beds at least) will be less and less, and really only to supplement on really hot days if I choose my plants wisely. I've read that a drip system can sometimes cause problems because as the roots reach out further if the drip doesn't also reach out with it it will limit proper root growth. Can I even winterize a drip system? This is more of a preferential thing, but I also notice with the drip system that by mid-summer my garden beds were so dusty compared to running the spray heads, which must keep dust down. A day of weeding (and yes, still had plenty of weeds) leaves me looking like a coal miner. I saved all my spray heads so converting back shouldn't be too hard. But it does seem crazy. I already did all the hard work. Should I just stick it out? Am I the only person to ever think this? Am I nuts?